In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyo, a Woman of Letters in Meiji Japan

by Ichiyō Higuchi and Robert Lyons Danly

Book Overview

Higuchi Ichiyo, Japan's first woman writer of stature in modern times, was born in 1872 and died at the age of twenty-four. In her brief life she wrote poems, essays, short stories and a great,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300026145
• ISBN13: 9780300026146
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.

Customer Reviews

"There was someone outside, tapping at her window"

Higuchi Ichiyo lived the classic tragic writer's life-- poverty, a struggle for success, death by tuberculosis at 23. She is considered to be the first professional female writer in Japan. She is an extremely popular literary figure in Japan-- her popularity due to both the quality of her work and her all too short life. This book contains a critical biography written by the late Robert Lyons Danly. He also translated and anthologized nine of her short stories in the volume. The critical biography is concise and informative, if a little bit on the dry side. The biography is spiced with little bits of her journals. The selection of stories spans the career of the writer, moving from her most unformed and derivative work to her more mature stories of the floating world. Some of the stories are stunning (particularly "Child's Play"). It is difficult not to wish that Higuchi Ichiy could have survived to a more advanced age and a more developed voice. Recommended reading for those with an interest in Japanese literature.

Aren't titles rather hokey?

After celebrating a golden age that was hundreds of years ahead of other civilized nations, women in Japan quickly fell from the cultural vanguard they had enjoyed during the Heian and were silent throughout the succession of bakufu governments that ended with the Meiji restoration in 1868. Ichiyo is widely credited as one of the first female voices to re-emerge after this extended silence. Though her career was cut short by her early death, several of her short stories are still in wide circulation in Japan and elsewhere. The beauty of this book is that it not only includes her own writings but also a rather deftly crafted biography. It has been my experience that non-Japanophiles tend to shy away from Japanese literature for lack of understanding the culture. The inclusion of the biography in this work makes it more approachable for those wishing to delve into the world of Japanese literature without undertaking a study of Japan's history and culture.

One of the great classics of world literature

Deservedly, this 19th century's woman's writings are considered some of the greatest in the world. Robert Danly has done a wonderful job of bringing Ichiyo to us. Out of a different time and world, he has still managed to make her accessible to an English reader.The first half of the book is devoted to biographical material about Japan's unique and memorable real-life heroine. The second half presents nine of her short stories in translation. Each story its own literary jewel.I've read thousands of books and this is one of my most treasured.